Enjoy God’s Prepared Blessing of Conquering Canaan (Num. 31:2-12)
We will share the grace of God with Numbers 31. Right now, the Israelites, right before entering into the land of Canaan, are living in the land of the Moabites. The Moabites opposed the Israelites a great deal because they were afraid the Israelites were going to take over their land and among them, Prophet Balaam was trying to curse the Israelites.
The people of the Midianites are the descendants of Abraham’s first wife. After Abraham’s first wife passed away, he married someone else, so from the perspective of flesh and blood, they are almost the same people. The Midianites are the people who ran away into the wilderness, they are sales people. When Joseph was sold into slavery to Egypt, it was through the hands of these Midianites. The Midianites were bound to succeed in business because they were the land in between Egypt and the Middle East.
The Moabites tried to curse the Israelites three times through Prophet Balaam, but instead of curses, it continuously came out as blessings. Then in Numbers 25 the Israelite men fell into idolatry because of their lust. It got to the point where one of the Israelites brought one of the Moabite women and had sex in the tent, and that’s why Phineas, the son of priest Eleazar stabbed those two with a spear, and from that point on, Phineas received the blessing of being the high priest.
Because of this incident, 12,000 people died from disease. After that happened, God continuously gave the Word to the Israelites in order for the 2nd generations who will go into the land of Canaan to be able to conquer, which were the words of how to give the the daily offering and sacrifice, the burnt sacrifices as well as the weekly Sabbath, the monthly sacrifice, and the yearly feasts. Today, before they were going to enter into the land of Canaan, there was an area they needed to clean up. The area they had to clean up prior to entering Canaan was what the LORD said to Moses in Numbers 31.
Numbers 31:2, “Take vengeance on the Midiansites for the Israelites, after that you’ll be gathered to your people” What this means is the Midianites were destroying the Israelites because of sexual immorality, so after you repay the isrekaites the vengeance upon them, Moses is going to essentially pass away.
In Numbers 31:3, Moses said to the people, “Arm some of your men to go to war against the Midianites and to carry out the LORD’s vengeance on them.” the important word here is “vengeance.” If you misunderstand the word “vengeance,” you may think you are taking vengeance on your enemies. You have to understand the word “vengeance” well in order for you to win and overcome.
Numbers 31 is talking about a physical battle; however, theologically speaking, it’s talking about a spiritual battle. There’s an entity that is disturbing the work God is doing. There was an angel who became arrogant and wanted to become like God himself, and was corrupted because of this. Then, he vows sin into mankind to disrupt the work God is trying to do through mankind, so this complete communication we have with God is disrupted. That’s our enemy, and this must be resolved.
All the first generation who were in the wilderness passed away, and many of the second generation did as well, because they were bowing down to idols and had sexual immorality. Prophet Balaam knew that these were the two most critical areas for the Israelites. They tried to curse the Israelites through Prophet Balaam, but they could not.
He received the money but wasn’t able to curse them, but he blessed them because he had to follow the word of the Holy Spirit, but there was a word he gave before he left. He gave them the secret to overcome the Israelites without fighting against them, and that’s in Revelation 2. In Rev. 2:14, “Nevertheless, I have a few things against you: You have people there who hold to the teaching of Balaam who taught Balak to entice the Israelites to sin so that they ate food sacrifices and committed sexual idolatry” so it was Balaam who taught Balak.
The method of enticing the Israelites was by feeding them food sacrificed to idols. Maybe it’s because they were so hungry or they saw food sacrificed to idols which seemed so much more delicious than manna that they were eating. People who have gluttony for food, be careful. They didn’t go there in order to bow down to idols; they went there because they wanted the food the Moabites were eating, but if you get dragged in that direction, you have to commit acts of sexual immorality.
In reality, idolatry and sexual immorality are the same. Both of these are Satan’s channels. This is the strategy Prophet Balaam told to King Balak because he received the payment, and this way he would feel less apologetic, he thought no one would know, so he gave this. King Balak took this advice and sent women to entice the Israelites. He seduced them to come into the temple of the Midianites. Imagine how much food they had prepared. This is how they were ensnared. This is what happened outside the camp of the Israelites but the people who were really full of themselves, they brought the Midianite women and did these dirty acts within the camp itself.
God gave the command, “If someone is sinful, they must be sent outside of the camp so that everyone can observe the effects of their sin, but sin was never permitted to enter into the camp,” because sin is like yeast that would influence all the Israelites. If you commit a sin, either you die, or if you don’t die, you’ll have some kind of disease or plague, and you’ll have to live outside of the Israelite community. Then, all the people of Israel will see that this person is cursed because of their sin. This is what happened to Moses’ older siblings when they fought against him, and afterward when God forgave her, he brought her back into the community. That’s how God prevented anything else from existing within the Israelite community.
But someone was so audacious to the point where he was bringing a woman to fornicate with her in the tents of Israel and Phineas stabbed them both with a spear. From God’s perspective, this is an act worth blessing. He was the first person to destroy the acts of sin and Satan that were taking place within us. 12,000 people got a disease because of this and died. Until this is taken care of, they cannot enter into Canaan.
The Midianites are the Midianites; however, if they let this channel for Satan and the spiritual state of the Israelites remain unresolved, they would be destroyed in Canaan. Because inside the land of Canaan, there were 7 nations and 31 different kings who resided for such a long time, so it’s incomparable to the wilderness; they have to resolve everything here before they go in. You have to quickly block this channel first, because Satan uses our weaknesses to destroy us before we are able to enjoy the blessings of God. That’s why God made them destroy the Midianites prior to entering into Canaan.
Before we conquer the world, there are channels of darkness within us. This is what God wants us to resolve first. There are channels of darkness coming from your family line. People who have been serving a specific religion for many generations also have been a perfect channel for Satan for many generations. The kids don’t want to not give worship for no reason, but it’s because they are within this spiritual influence. Your child is within the flow of the spiritual influence of your family line.
You may be okay because of God’s grace, but that’s not the case for your child. If your child becomes independent with the gospel, it would be great, but otherwise, they would be directly influenced by the spiritual state of your family line. This is especially the characteristic of people who serve a specific religion. Catholicism is a hunk of demonic works. I’m talking about any specific religion. They think Catholicism is okay because they talk about God’s Word, but this is how the devil works, through God’s Word.
In Korea, there’s Buddhism. If you believed in it very seriously, then without a doubt, your children are suffering. Why? Because there’s a spiritual flow. This is what you must get rid of, first. You have to know this in order to save your children and the region. That is the case, if you look at families that have worshiped a certain religion for many generations, the work of demons is extra strong upon them, and this is the reason why it’s so difficult for them. They listen to God’s Word, they receive grace, but there’s something within them that continues to drag them; this is what they have to completely overcome and resolve first.
Numbers 31:4 says, “Send into battle a thousand men from each of the tribes of Israel.” So, 12,000 men will go into battle, irrespective of the population of each tribe. The fact that God didn’t pick out people in proportion to the number of people in each tribe means each person had a part to fight in the spiritual battle even though they didn’t partake in the idolatry or sexual immorality, he is aging they have a spiritual battle in their families, and your tribe, then you must arise and fight. That’s what this is saying. The representative, overarching examples are idolatry and sexual immorality, but this is just one way out of many for it to be manifested.
Numbers 31:5 says, “So 12,000 men armed for battle 1000 from each tribe must supply for Israel.” If you want to fight the spiritual battle, you must be armed. Eph. 6 says to arm yourself spiritually from head to toe; you must not fight the spiritual battle empty-handed. You have to completely be rooted in the gospel. You have to have the sword of the Word, and it must not be a dull sword; it must be sharpened because the sword of the Spirit is the Word of God. This is the only offensive tool you have; everything else is for defense.
The characteristic of someone who loses the spiritual battle is that they shake back and forth regarding the Word of God. It doesn’t matter what you know about Satan, but how are you going to break him down? The sword of the Spirit, the Word of God, must be accurate, but if this word is not accurate, then that’s what happened in Genesis 3 when they were swallowed up by Satan.
If we ask, “What was the pulpit message this week?” It will be hard for you. You must hold onto the word God gave you for this week in a very lively and bold way. Not the word you received decades ago back when you received salvation by grace, but it’s the Word God is giving you right now. People hold onto the Word they received grace from when they receive ied salvation for the rest of their lives but is God dead now? He is giving you the Word to fight the spiritual battle right now. It must be accurate.
When you receive the Word of God on Sunday, it must be held firmly in your hand so you can fight the spiritual battle throughout the rest of your week in your field. If you know it very haphazardly, then you will be attacked haphazardly. Our enemy knows our spiritual weakness. Demons are extremely accurate. Through Balaam, the demons told exactly how to attack the Israelites to spiritually destroy them.
Numbers 31:6. Moses sent them into battle, a thousand from each tribe, along with PHenas, son of Elezar, the priest, who took with him articles from the sanctuary and the trumpets for signaling.” This is important. It seems like we’re the ones fighting the battle, but this battle is being fought by God being with us, which is represented by the articles in the sanctuary. It’s impossible for us to win a battle against the devil. Jesus Christ destroyed the authority of the devil on the cross; it was never us. That’s why we take on the power of His name and we fight with the power of being with Christ.
This is the reason God told them to give a sacrifice every single day once they got into Canaan. If the problem of Canaan is about eating and surviving, why would they have to sacrifice every day, isn’t that right? If the problem is physical, they wouldn’t have to give sacrifices every day; they should study in the library every day. Every day, they should be getting an MBA or go to a trade school to develop some skills, don’t you think? Or every day they should go practice their military skills. Or, God should explain the way to network well with one another so our businesses can thrive.
Why did God not tell any of this but kept telling us about the sacrifices that don’t fit us at all? Is God like an unforgiving boss who is so unyielding? If someone says, “Yes, this may have been the method in the Old Testament, so I’m sure God’s Word changes too,” God never changes and God’s Word never changes. You have to know this in order to know the reason why God made the Israelites give the sacrifices every day, every week, every month, and every year through the feasts.
God has already prepared the blessing of conquering Canaan for His children. The issue is that there’s an enemy preventing us from enjoying that. That’s why we must give the sacrifice that destroys the curses of unbelief, and the curses that come because of disbelief. In other words, we must remain within the grace, the blessing, and spiritual strength of being with God. But because we live in such a superpower nation, it’s possible that they might look down on the spiritual things like worshiping and giving sacrifices. That’s the power of the superpower nation.
The superpower nation is a place where all the physical things may be very powerful, but spiritually, everyone is completely dead. Because everyone is so physical, unless they completely hold onto the spiritual covenant, they’re going to look at people who are physically okay and think they’re okay. Satan will, without a doubt, destroy them. Satan will destroy them in the same way he destroyed everyone in their family line. Simultaneously he will destroy you using the culture of America.
The spiritual problems of the family line and the spiritual problems of the future of America are simultaneously beating up your children twice as hard, why is that? It’s because they don’t understand the reason why God told them to give the burnt offering twice a day, every day, once they got into Canaan. They’ve misunderstood the problem of the land of Canaan as something they could overcome with their efforts, diligence, and the efforts of mankind.
Without a doubt, God told us that everything in Canaan was prepared for us, however, He also told us that there’s an enemy, an opponent in Canaan. We need to fight against that, and God will fight the battle along with us, and that’s why we must worship and sacrifice. May you believe in the fact that right now, when you hold to the covenant and pray, all the curses and darkness are broken down, that’s God’ method.
That’s why, constantly, worship and sacrifice. If this doesn’t come deep into our hearts, we’ll live so diligently and still be destroyed. Even in the spiritual battle against the channels of Satan within you, God will be with you. Without a doubt, you must fight the battle. When are spiritual problems broken? You have to first acknowledge that this is first a spiritual problem. Next, if you just have the posture of fighting, acknowledging that Hessu a Christ has already finished this problem, and you have that faith and strength, then it’s already finished.
But if you don’t know any of this, then without you knowing, you’ll always be attacked. You have to look very closely at your family line. Before you get married to anyone else, you have to look at the spiritual problems of their family line first. You have to be aware of it to understand them and to help them. If you just look at them physically, they might look pretty fine and they might have a fine background, but what does that mean? Later on, you’ll be taken in by their spiritual problems. Even after you get married and move in, you’re still unaware then you will be attacked. Constantly, things are blowing up but you don’t know why. You just think physically, “It’s because of this person, it’s because of that,” and that’s relayed directly to your children. This is in addition to all the spiritual problems in your region as well.
If you knew this, then no one would ever have to tell you to open up a regional church or to worship. You have no choice but to hold onto only Christ. But because you don’t see that as your battle, you try to prepare yourself physically. You think you’re going to die if you don’t have money. You won’t die. You might die if you’re in Africa because they don’t have welfare prepared, but here, we have welfare, so at least physically, you won’t die.
What’s important are the spiritual things. People have money and everything, but they don’t go home. They have success and have accomplished everything, but they have no choice but to do drugs, so success is not the issue. This person’s family line and the spiritual state of the region are connected, and they still go to church. But they’re just living a religious life in church. They just go very vaguely, thinking, “If I go to church with my diligence and righteousness, I should be blessed, right?”
We have to allow other people to understand these things in order for fundamental evangelism take place. If evangelism isn’t taking place, then it means that you’re personally not enjoying this. But if someone knows the reason why the gospel is the answer, they’re bound to see the field, isn’t that right? If the gospel is the only answer for me, it means it’s the answer for the spiritual things, not the physical things. That’s why you need to go into battle with the articles from the sanctuary and the trumpets for signaling.
Numbers 31:7, They fought against Midian as the LORD commanded Moses, and killed every man who was able to fight. There were two Jehovah’s witnesses, one who attacked me at Seoul University, and one who attacked me near the park over here, and they were both Jehovah’s witnesses who attacked me and asked, “If God is a God of love, why does He have us fight in wars?”
I went to the University to evangelize, and there were two female students and we started talking. I said I was Christian and we started talking about the fact that when Jehovahs witnesses go into war, first of all, they don’t go into war, but even if they do, they don’t hold guns because they can’t kill, and they said, “God told us not to murder.” So, for Jeohvah’s witnesses, if they go onto the military, even if they’re beaten up, they;’re not going to hold onto a gun, but the military will beat them up a lot because they’re committing treason against the commands of the army.
People in the military don’t care if you’re jehovahs’ witness, they will just beat you up half to death because you’re disobeying their orders. But the Jehovah’s Witnesses stake their lives on fighting for their faith because they don’t want to hold anything that kills people. Because we couldn’t get through to each other, they brought the head of their organization, and I think he was a graduate student, so they started talking about the Bible.
They started saying things like, “You’re not allowed to kill people in battle,” so I asked about David. “David went out to so many battles,” and the Holy Spirit gave me the wisdom to say this, “Let’s say that there is a battle or war around your neighborhood. Your neighbor was killed by the opponent and even though you had a gun, you didn’t hold it to save your neighbor, then you’re an accomplice to the murder because you had the opportunity to block the murderer and save the neighbor, but you didn’t. Then David should not have gotten into any wars.” They couldn’t say anything; they just left.
About three years after I started this church, we were evangelizing in Macarthur park and I heard the same thing there, but because they are demon possessed, the words they say don’t make sense. God gave me wisdom to say what I said; I didn’t learn it anywhere. God told them to kill anyone they met in Canaan, and when you see this, it’s hard to understand, “God is a God of love; why would He want us to kill people?” It means to make it so that there’s no sin before God. That’s what He’s saying otherwise you’ll be taken in by it and Satan will destroy you with it. That’s what this is saying.
There are some people who say, “Instead of talking about the spiritual battle and blood, can we talk about being loving and about being together more?” If you want to listen to words like that, you should go to a church that talks a lot about things like that. Yes, the Bible says God is love, but there are times where God tells us to kill. He says, “When you go into the land of Canaan, don’t spare a single life,” then these people are incorrect in their understanding of God. We have to fight against idolatry and Satan and win; otherwise, we will be destroyed by these things, and you must understand it this way.
Numbers 31:8. “Among their victims were Evi, Rekem, Zur, Hur, and Reba–the five kings of Midian. They also killed Balaam, son of Beor, with the sword.” King Zur’s daughter was seducing the Israelites and having sex with them when they were killed in Numbers 25. Numbers 25:15 says, “And the name of the Midianite woman who was put to death was Cozbi, daughter of Zur, a tribal chief of a Midianite family.”
Then in Numbers 31:9, “the Israelites captured all the Midianite women,children, flocks and herds.” And everything that was allowing them to live there, they set fire too. Numbers 31:10, they burned all the towns where the Midianites had settled as well as all their camps. There’s a repetitive channel Satan uses to attack us every time we’re about to conquer Canaan or the world, and this is why we always fail even when it seems it will work out, and when God told every single tribe to fight against this, it means that this exists in every tribe.
Keep the family line in mind very well. First and foremost, what kind of religious or spiritual background does this individual and family line have? Without a doubt, any religion has the work of demons. The more they believed in that religion, the stronger the works of demons were. There are some people who came without having much of a faith before, the characteristic of that person is that they’re completely “me-centered,” it’s extremely strong in them, so they only believe that what they’ve experienced is right, and they have their own value systems and ideologies, that becomes their channel for Satan.
Everything they held onto as they lived their life, they thought, “This is better than having Jesus Christ,” becomes a Satan’s channel for them. You have to be aware of this and fight against it because Christ has already finished everything on the cross. My experience means, if you’re aware of it, you win. But it takes some time before you’re able to acknowledge it. Because this has become our nature and culture for so long, we just assume that it’s part of our life. But it turns out this is actually Satan’s repetitive, continuous, and constant channel of attack.
This is why God tells us to get rid of this first. If you know this, then you’re able to easily help new believers because everyone has this. This is what we mean by “spiritual research,” you have to know the religions, culture, in the area, but all of this is used to understand the spiritual state of the individuals. But there are some people who are constantly dragged around by something without knowing, so even if you tell them about it they won’t know. If anything, they’re going to get mad at your words. This is not something you can do, it’s your words, that’s why you must pray for them.
What happens when you pray? Realistically, spiritual works are relayed to them. Only the ones who believe this can pray. The Nephilim and demonic organizations are currently doing this, but most people who go to church don’t know. They just have a Buddhist prayer where they say, “Give me this.” This is the only kind of prayer they know, they don’t know the actual spiritual works. Then churches are bound to continue to close. But all the Nephilim organizations and religions are bound to thrive.
It must be a church officer who knows this, a church officer who can conquer spiritually. Until this point, evangelism will not take place. You have to conquer spiritually. If the demon spiritually seizes something, you cannot persuade anyone without the power of the Holy Spirit. There are blind spots, empty places, and the golden fishing grounds. Those places are the places where the gospel hasn’t gone in.
This is where you must send the work of God that transcends time and space. If you know this, then you can do this very easily. Then, when God’s time schedule comes, you’ll have the signs that appear where one or two fish will start to bite. All of these signs come up when the forces of darkness of Satan are broken down.
This is what you must do first, then give them the Word after. Do this at your job, and students, do this in your school fields. “When do I study?” This has nothing to do with that. But people who don’t understand this spiritually don’t understand what this means at all. If people are working, you can work diligently while you have this, then the economy of darkness of mankind will be broken down.
The culture of darkness will be broken, and that’s the business we must have. Until the end, you don’t eat too, they say, we don’t want to do that, we want to do as we already knew and learned. They only know themselves and they cannot escape from their own values. America exists very strongly, that’s why churches exist. The fact that this church exist in this region means that there is something God wants to do in this region. All of you are in scattered regions, so God wants you to scatter to those regions to do this work. First, God reveals the things within you, the hidden channels, and heals them, and God wants you to save your fields as the summit, and all your fields are connected to the 237 nations.
This is why God says every day, in your home, as soon as you wake up in the morning, that’s what’s most important. Everything else just follows. Just do your studies, just do your business. No reason to be afraid of it; that’s your incorrect education; that’s the darkness. That’s what Satan has imprinted in you in the opposite way.
Prayer
May this message of Numbers 31 be a time of blessing that breaks down the curses and darkness in our family and our region. Let us pray together. For people who keep falling over without knowing why, let’s pray for God to open our spiritual eyes. That’s what this is. There’s something there.
Let’s pray for our separate regions. It may just seem like buildings and people, but everyone is moving within this spiritual background. Knowing this, it’s the church; without knowing this, it’s just religion, and you’re the same as an unbeliever, and the only things you see are the physical things.
God, break down the forces of darkness in the region. May the disciples who will do this 24 hours a day without resting arise in every region. May you raise up the remnants who will connect this movement down to the next generations, and raise up the multiethnic people who can take this to the 237 nations. Let us pray together.
In December, there will be the winter retreat, and there will be two messages sent to us from Korea, one by Rev. Ryu and another by another pastor, and the reason they send us messages like this because there is word that they really want to organize for the students before the next year comes, so please be led by the Holy Spirit about this, because this is not something we can understand with our logic or conscience, it must be revealed to us by the working of the Holy Spirit according to God’s time schedule when the forces of darkness are broken. That’s why God told us to gather, there’s a blessing God has prepared for us when we go to gatherings, this blessing is not prepared in the world, because when you do it to the world you want to do things for yourself physically. The spiritual blessings are not out there in the world, so let us prepare together in prayer.
I will say one last thing. The spiritual things are about worshiping and gathering. There’s no need to do this for physical things. But if you don’t know the spiritual things, you won’t know how important this is, so that’s why people crumble on their own. You must know that every time you worship, the darkness is broken, and we gather together in the fields in regional churches, and all you have to know is the darkness in your fields and family line are being broken down. If you don’t know that, why would you go? It’s just a waste of time, but after time passes, you’ll see the works visible to your eyes. But if you don’t know this and you just gather without a thought in your mind, then even though things are taking place, you’re just sitting there blank minded, that’s strange, too. May you enjoy this blessing.
God, we thank You. Allow us to fight the spiritual battle before we enter into Canaan, and may we begin the spiritual battle that is already won through Jesus Christ’s victory. We pray that You will give us spiritual strength every day to win over Satan.
Benediction
Now may the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the unending love of God, and the indwelling, working, guidance, and communion of the Holy Spirit, be upon all the people of God who desire to enjoy the covenant that has already been fulfilled on the cross, upon all their studies and works and ministries, be with us from now until forevermore always, amen.